


Virgil Tracy Week

by akire_yta



Series: promptfics - thunderbirds are go [10]
Category: Thunderbirds
Genre: Multi, So many AUs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-14
Updated: 2016-08-20
Packaged: 2018-08-08 15:59:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 9,717
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7764085
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/akire_yta/pseuds/akire_yta
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><a href="http://virgiltracyweek.tumblr.com/">Virgil Tracy week 2016 </a>has eight prompts, and I decided to do eight different AUs, mostly of other shows I'm also a nerd about :)<br/><b></b><br/>Day One: Skies (a <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt4052886/">Lucifer</a>!AU)<br/>Day Two:  Stars (a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctor_Who">Doctor Who</a>!AU)<br/>Day Three: Music (a Bandom!AU)<br/>Day Four: Ocean (a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrow_(TV_series)">Arrow</a>!AU)<br/>Day Five: Heroes (a <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3659388/">The Martian</a>!AU)<br/>Day Six: Brothers (a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teen_Wolf_(2011_TV_series)">Teen Wolf</a>!AU)<br/>Day Seven: Change (a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Librarians_(2014_TV_series)">The Librarians</a>!AU)<br/>BONUS ROUND - the Hangover (a <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0167456/">Thunderbirds</a>!kinda!AU)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Lucifer!AU

**Author's Note:**

> The characters, relationships and warning tags will be updated as needed for each new fic

It’s dawn again in Los Angeles. The sky above him is the deepest, most incredible blue with not a cloud to be seen. The shadow that had fallen across his bare chest belonged instead to Kayo, standing over him, hands on hips. “Comfortable there, are we...whatever that ridiculous name is that are you using right now.”

“Virgil,” he reminded her, still enjoying the feel of the syllables in his mouth. “Remember when he came down, he was so pissed.” Virgil, newly born, deathlessly old, finally free, grinned broadly as he stretched out as slow as a cat. The concrete of the roof scratched against the scars on his back, but he was Virgil now, and Virgil was used to the pain.

Kayo snorted, shifting her hands from her hips to fold them across her chest. “Stupid mortal,” she replied with a dismissively. “Stupid name.”

Virgil ignored her; Kayo was vicious, the worst of the worst, his own personal demon. She’d been by his side for eternity now; he was used to her little moods. “My name now. He’s not using it any more.” Kayo doesn’t have a comeback for that, he can tell by the way she tossed her hair, looks away. “Being above suits you, love,” he added, settling more comfortably on the hard concrete roof. “You look good in the sunlight.”

Kayo still doesn’t know how to handle a compliment; she scowled, but Virgil can see she’s flustered. “I prefer the fiery pits of Hell. You know, home. Where we belong.”

Virgil closed his eyes again, enjoying the gentle warmth of of a new day. “I’m retired, Kayo,” he told her for the thousandth time since they’d come Above, since he’d flicked his dear old _dad_ the most final of birds and cut off his wings, and renounced them all, Above and Below. Under his breath, he began to hum, _no strings on me_.

Kayo kicked him in the ribs.

“Ow,” he cracked one eye open to glare at her. “No kicking.”

Kayo wasn’t looking at him; her hand was behind her back, no doubt gripping one of her fearsome blades as she stared across the roof. “You have a visitor,” she announced stiffly.

Only then did Virgil realize the sound of the traffic below had dopplered and slowed. Only one being in all of Creation heralded their own arrival that way. “Hello, dear brother,” Virgil said, not even looking over until he had fully sat up, legs tucked loosely beneath him. Only then did he deign to acknowledge the sanctimonious prick. “Welcome to the City of Angels.”

John never really understood jokes, or sarcasm, or anything that might make him crack a _blessed_ smile. “Father has requested you return to your duties,” he intoned stiffly, eyes bright, tracking Kayo as the demon moved to flank Virgil, covering his now-bare back.

Virgil ignored her as he lifted an eyebrow in mock surprise. “What? No hello brother? No solicitous inquiries as to my health? Not even a ‘how’s it been’?” Virgil dropped the act. “Colour me surprised,” he spat bitterly.

John sighed, a human tick out of place among the robes and the softly dappled grey wings. “Hello, dearest brother,” John said, actually sounding like Virgil’s brother for once, and not their Father’s ever-roaming eyes and ears in the sky. “Are you well now you’ve hacked your wings off with a demon’s blade? How’s it been, slumming among the mortals? Now,” and John’s feathers lifted and shivered as John’s tone changed again, back to the Voice that Spoke. “Are you going back to Hell or do I need to send you?”

Virgil was surprised enough to give a short round of applause. “Brother, that was almost menacing! If I didn’t know better, I’d think that LA was rubbing off on you in all the _wrong_ ways.” Virgil may have retired as the Lord of Hell, but he was still, at heart, a little devil. He pushed himself to his feet, so that he was eye to eye with John. “Now, go tell dear old _dad_ that I’m done being a cog in his machine. He made me the ultimate bad guy, but I’m not playing any more. He can make himself another monster.” Virgil felt his lip curl and gave into temptation to hurt something. “Maybe this time it’ll be you?”

The only sign he’d scored a direct hit was the way John’s lips thinned, as if he were choking back a retort. “You can tell him yourself. Preferably from your throne Below.”

Virgil’s laugh was bitter. “But John, you’re his little messenger. His eyes and ears and mouthpiece, since he can never bring himself to do his own dirty work. You know he never listens to what I have to say.”

John’s wings drooped, then disappeared as John winched them back in. Virgil’s own back itched, a constant ache since he’d cut off his own wings, and with them, any chance at flying back up into the dome of heaven. Standing there on the roof, no wings, no halos or pitchforks, it was suddenly just two brothers facing each other for the first time in eons. “You’re wrong,” John said softly, and the gentle tone reminded Virgil of when they were young, before he went to Hell and John became the Voice of their father.

But bridges had burned and Virgil had quit. “No, I’m pretty sure. Because either he doesn’t hear me, or he hears me but doesn’t answer, which is an even shittier way for a father to treat a son.”

John’s smile was secretive, even as he shook his head. “No, not that.” He glanced across the roof, to the skyline of LA beyond. “You’re wrong, you’re not a monster, brother. You never were, and _He_ certainly could never make you one.”

A gust of wind, the beat of wings, and John was gone.

Kayo’s hand was gentle on Virgil’s arm; he started in surprise, shaking himself out of his stunned reverie. He’d forgotten she was even there. “You okay, boss?”she asked, as gentle as she ever got, one hand still on a sheathed weapon.

Virgil sucked down air, smoggy and smoky and entirely devoid of brimstone. It was like manna. “Yeah, fine. I need a drink.” He pushed his fingers through his hair and headed for the stairs back down to the club.

“He’s not wrong,” she called after him.

Virgil paused, hand on the rail. “About which bit in particular?”

Kayo was a statue against the brilliance of the skyline. “You’re not a monster. We need to go home. All of it.”

Virgil had thought himself alone when he had Fallen. How was he to know that was just a prelude to how he felt now. “Kayo, darling. Monstrosity is all a matter of perspective, isn’t it. But understand this, little demon of mine.” He felt his eyes start to flash, an echo of his true form. Kayo froze, pinned to the spot by his glare. “I am never, ever, going back.”

The door slammed satisfyingly behind him.


	2. Doctor Who!AU

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Virgil never dreamed of the stars. He knew himself better now.

Virgil stood, his face tilted up to the stars, his back pressed to the wood still holding the warmth of the day.  Inside, in his room, he had crude maps and creative extrapolations of all the stars he had seen up close, glowing balls a dozen different colours of fire that he desperately wanted to capture in pencil and ink and paint.

John and Alan both dreamed of the heavens, but they were enamored with the process, the heroism, the mad science and the foolhardy bravery of strapping yourself onto a rocket and hurling yourself into the night.

Virgil hadn’t ever really wanted that, not in the way they did when they were all small, lying in the fields and counting stars. Now he knew himself better.  He understood now how it wasn’t the journey he cared about, but the thrill of having somewhere completely new to explore.  

They wanted to touch the sky; Virgil wanted to meet everyone and everything out there.  He craved that thrill, the knowledge that there was always something new, a new star or a new planet or even something strange around corners people turned a thousand times a day.  He wanted to explore it all.

He needed to see for himself that no matter how small or how big, every part mattered.

His feet hurt from the day, soles slightly bruised from sprinting, helter skelter, across the rock-strewn shoreline.  He could hear the waves now, at a distance, the soft lapping of an ocean obeying the tides.

There were two moons here, chasing each other across the starry night.

Virgil let his head loll to the side, keeping his eyes on lunar twins above as the door next to him finally opened. “Fixed?”

There was still a faint, acrid note of something important burning, but it was dissipating in the cool ocean breeze.  The Doctor’s boots crunched as he stepped out of the TARDIS and onto the sand.  “Almost.  She just needs a breather, don’t you dear,” the Doctor said, rubbing the door frame fondly. 

Virgil finally turned to look at him, smiling as he saw the blanket tossed haphazardly over the Doctor’s crooked arm.  “Picnic?”

The Doctor’s grin was impish as he nodded, unselfconscious and so impossibly  _ alive _ .  

Virgil had fallen in love with the Doctor the very first time they’d met, when Virgil was thirteen and full of curiousity and fear about the world beyond their Kansas farm.  A childhood crush on the promise as much as the person, he knew that now.  Virgil loved the man still, but in a way tempered by time and space, by fear and concern, and by the repeated, random reminders from the universe that the Doctor was something else beyond anything Virgil could ever hope to understand, no matter how long he spent exploring every facet and face.

He wasn’t thirteen anymore, and they were a long way from Kansas.

As the Doctor bounded away over the dunes looking for the perfect spot, Virgil gave the TARDIS a gentle pat of his own.  He was as fond of the strange, mad box as he was of the madman inside.

It was going to break his heart to leave them both.

Traveling through space and time, chasing the Doctor from adventure to adventure, he’d seen the universe in all its awful and awe-inspiring glory.  For every new world, new city, new adventure to be discovered and explored, Virgil had felt a little more of his own edifice burn away, revealing a little bit more about who he was becoming.

Virgil wanted to see everything, wanted this adventure to never end.  But something in his head was telling him that time was running out.

Behind him, deep within the TARDIS, something went  _ glong _ , a sound Virgil felt more than heard as it reverberated up through every place that was still leaning against the wooden facade.  “I know,” Virgil murmured.  “I’ll tell him. Soon.”

He looked up from impossible blue wood into infinite night.  The stars with bright here, too many twinkly points of light for him to ever fully explore. “Soon,” he repeated to himself.  “But let’s not spoil tonight, okay?”  Feet sore, legs tired, Virgil followed the Doctor into the night one more time.

 


	3. bandom!AU

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Being a rock star wasn't all it was cracked up to be (day three: music = bandom!AU)

Virgil shook the sweat from his eyes, nodding his thanks at the tech who pushed a cold bottle of water into his hands.  It was a zillion degrees under the lights, and the temptation was to just chug it all, but he had learned that lesson the hard way.

Beyond the curtain, the stadium was just a wall of noise.  Virgil glanced over, saw Gordon nodding his head, counting down silently to the perfect moment to step back out for the encore.

Gordon always seemed to know how to take the crowd right to the edge and just hold them there.  He’d been doing it since the days when they were playing in basements and parking lots, back when it was four of them, killing time and making music just because.

Virgil never said it out loud, but he missed those days.

His guitar was heavy, a dragging weight where it hung on its strap around his shoulders.  Virgil glanced over, back towards where John was sitting at his kit, and nodded his readiness.  The click of John’s sticks was barely audible over the noise of the crowd, but they’d done this night after night for months now, so in sync with each other they could run the whole show on a look, a nod, a glance.

The lights came up and the roar of the crowd washed over him as the song began again.

* * *

They had only three days off before the next leg of the tour, though Virgil was doubting that his brothers really understood the concept ‘time off.’

He’d seen John briefly at breakfast, sipping coffee and studying his notes before his exam.  Only John, they all had laughed, would consider doing a world tour and completing his Masters at the same time.  Virgil had gotten used to the sight of thick textbooks, places marked with drum sticks and scraps of paper covered in mathematical and musical notation.  “Drumming and physics,” John had said with a shrug one day after catching Virgil trying to make sense of one of the texts.  “It's all just counting.”

John had left with barely a word before Virgil was even halfway through his first cup of coffee.  Virgil almost stopped John to ask the question that had been bouncing around his own head all tour, but he hesitated too long, and John was gone.  Virgil wasn’t sure he wanted to hear John not understand this anyway.  He wasn’t sure he could explain it himself.  

Virgil finished his breakfast in silence, the rest of the household still asleep.

Scott had been the next to make an appearance, already glued to his phone, for all that he was still in his sweatpants and a ragged t-shirt that had seen better decades. “Yeah, I get that, but tell them we still want points,”  Scott looked up, a nod of his chin a proxy greeting.  “Thanks, great, now about doing a track for that movie, what was it called again….”  Virgil had pressed a cup into Scott’s hand and beat his escape before Scott could solicit an opinion about a contract or a deal.  He didn’t need to ask Scott; Virgil knew what the response would be there.

Gordon was splayed out on the sofa, letting Alan pepper him with question after question about life on tour.  Alan had wanted to come out with them since the beginning, but there was always a reason not to--the old van was too small for one more body, and now the tour was too crazy for Alan to come and still keep up with his schoolwork.  Virgil wondered if the others felt guilty too, for leaving their little brother behind.  They only had three days together again, he knew he should stop, spend time with the sprout who seemed taller and more grown up every time they came home.

But Alan still had stars in his eyes, hadn’t had the glitter knocked out by endless touring, bland hotel rooms and smelly buses. 

Virgil barely paused to wave as he slipped down the stairs.

Grandma had been busy in the hallway again.  Virgil kept his head down, ignoring the magazine covers she had framed and hung on every wall.  He couldn’t explain it, even to the others, but there was something creepy about them.  The made-up eyes, the carefully mussed hair.  The smiles that grew stiffer and more fake in every subsequent photograph.

The newest covers were by the door to the music room; Virgil could barely recognize himself at all.

The door was too well hung to slam shut behind him.  

Virgil had designed this room himself, every acoustic angle calculated, every advance in soundproofing adapted to fit his needs.  A custom Steinway sat in the centre of the room.

He settled slowly on the bench, taking his time, letting his fingers drift lightly over the cover before lifting it up to reveal the perfect row of keys beneath.  “Hello there,” he said quietly, letting the pads of his fingers rest gently for a moment before depressing the middle C.

The note was clear and bright and pure, something apart from the cascade of chords he ripped from his guitar and pushed through amplifiers and speaker stacks.

He liked the guitar well enough, but the piano always surprised him.

Grieg’s concerto in A minor was on the music stand, and after running a brief scale to warm up, Virgil began to play.  The shadows moved across the walls as time marched on.  Virgil moved from Grieg to Schumann to Rachmaninoff, letting the sound clear his head and his hands.  As the final note rang and faded, Virgil considered going back upstairs.

But that would mean walking past those photographs with the fake smiles.  No-one would come looking for him until dinner.  

The sheaves of music, carefully lined and marked with staves, were hidden beneath a folio in the third drawer set into the far wall.  Virgil sat on the edge of the piano stool and flicked through the sheets, re-familiarizing himself with the penciled marks and notations, so different yet still something akin to the chords and progressions he wrote for Gordon to sing.  Two sides of the same musical coin.

This piece wasn't for touring--it was just for him and his piano.  Finding his place, Virgil wrote until the staves were covered before once again turning to face the keys.  The music he longed to hear streamed down into his fingers and the sound that filled the room lifted up his smile, his real smile, once more.


	4. Arrow!AU

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everyone kept saying it was a miracle. (Day 4: Oceans = Arrow!AU)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> note for Arrow-canon (circa s1) level references to beating up bad guys and getting stranded on islands run by psychos.

Everyone kept saying it was a miracle.  

Virgil didn’t believe in miracles anymore.  He trusted his instincts, he followed his gut, he marshaled his resources, and he always, always struck first now.  No hesitation, no doubt.

Doubt got people killed, and there was too much at stake now to hesitate.

The ocean had destroyed their ship, had swallowed their mother whole.  Virgil will never tell his brothers what happened in the five years between that storm and his arrival back, alone, at their door, the castaway son returned.

If he was to complete his mission, they could never, ever know.

He saw Kayo eye warily the wooden chest he had brought with him, the sum total of his material possessions.  The beaten, warped surface looked so out of place in the plush luxury of the Tracy home, a water-stained lump amid blond wood and clean, Scandinavian-styled lines.

No-one was allowed to touch it.  He had snarled and lashed out at anyone who had tried, and heard them whisper words like ‘trauma’ and ‘stress,’ their concern easily picked out in the noise of civilization.  Virgil ignored them, twisting their whispers into another weapon, their assumptions into another line in his defenses.

To fulfill the mission his mother had pressed onto him with that thick little address book, he needed every weapon, every trick, every disguise. He needed to become something else.  And so he worked, and he planned, and he played the part that was expected of him so no-one looked for more.

Kyrano still eyed him warily, the memory of his failure in protecting his charge obvious in the older man’s every movement.  Virgil knew that the old Virgil, the man he was  _ before _ , would have taken Kyrano aside and reassured him that it wasn’t his fault.  The  _ Thunderbird _ was destroyed by the storm, and not even a Kyrano could fight a hurricane.

But that was who he was before.  That Virgil died in Purgatory.  

Virgil now just avoided Kyrano, dodging and weaving the over-cautious concerns by sneaking out or just straight-up lying.  He has a base to build, a plan five years in the making to push into motion.  He has no time for distractions.

But Kyrano has pieces of his own in play.  When Virgil and his mother had set sail five years ago, Kayo was still just Tanushka, a big-eyed child who tagged along gamely with the boys.  Somewhere, while Virgil was lost, Tanushka had vanished as well, leaving Kayo behind.  Kayo was tall and strong, standing square with her feet already braced as if to throw a punch.

It’s Kayo that Kyrano sets on Virgil’s trail now.  And Kayo is good; really good.  But Virgil has fought for his life too often, bare-handed and desperate, and Kayo still hasn’t fully grasped that you can ignore the rules.

She’s hunting for him now, Virgil knows this, but it doesn’t overly concern him.  The hood over his head still smells of the island, and his fingers stroke the fletchings on his arrows as he waits.  The storm had brought with it the kind of rain that falls in a straight drop, muffling sound, promising seclusion.

The first name on his list is getting out of a car in the alley below. Virgil nocks an arrow, puts it neatly in the lone bodyguard’s shoulder, the point right in the ball of the joint.  Virgil drops from his perch, timed so that he and the bodyguard drop onto the pavement in one soft  _ thud _ .

His target is still turning towards his guard, still to fully process that he is under attack.

Two swift steps, and Virgil has the grip of his bow pressing into the nape of the man’s neck, driving him face-first into the side of his car.  “You have failed this city,” Virgil says, dropping his voice to the bottom of his register. Beneath his hands, the name on the list pleads for his life, just like his victims would have pleaded for theirs.

Virgil had left mercy in the jungle, along with his innocence and his trust, and all the other things he wouldn’t need while under this hood.  Beneath his fists, the name from his list makes promises that Virgil knows will be kept.  He understands just how powerful a motivator terror can be.  One more blow, and the babbling stops as the name from the list slumps onto the sodden ground.

The rain pelts his shoulders as Virgil lifts his bow and shoots a grapple up onto the rooftop.  It was easy, easier than the ramble of the jungle, to find a foothold, the ledges and handholds here evenly spaced as he sped into the night.

Three more names, three more threats.  One he might have turned; the others he knows he will see again soon.  The rain was easing as Virgil dropped through a skylight and stalked the shadows of the empty warehouse down into his lair.

The boxes of supplies were ringed by trestle tables, lights, generators.  Virgil pushed back the sodden hood with one hand as he set down his bow and walked around his worktable to check if he had enough cable to make more grapples.  They were more useful here, amid tall buildings, concrete edifices and narrow escape ladders.

“So this answers some of my questions.”

The fletchette was out and flying towards the voice before the second syllable was fully formed.  Kayo rolled, coming up in a defensive posture.  She relaxed slowly, keeping her eyes locked with Virgil’s as she showed her empty hands.

Virgil sucked in a deep breath through his nose, a second fletchette already in his fingers as he paused and waited for her next move.

“So, guy in a hood.  Security chatter tonight is alive.  Never would’ve picked it to be you.”  Her eyes broke contact to roam across the workbenches, knives and arrowheads and more obscure weaponry lined neatly on every surface.  “Where did you learn all this?”

“Purgatory,” Virgil said after the silence had stretched to breaking point.  “I had time to kill.”

A tiny tick is her only hint of a smile.  “Well, I’ve been charged to protect you…”

He shook his head.  “You’ve been tasked to protect Virgil Tracy…”

That got him a proper smirk.  “I can multi-task.  But only if you loop me in.”  She dared to take a step forward. Virgil held his ground.  “And I think you need to someone.  Before whatever this is eats you whole.”

She wasn’t wrong, that was the galling part. But he had accepted his fate along with this mission, and five years had taught him how words could be thrown back like weapons, how trust could be betrayed.  He was clenching his fists, he realized, and his jaw was aching from grinding his teeth together.  “What I have to do, they’re probably going to finish off killing me before I’m done,” he promised.

If the choice of words confused her, she didn’t show it.  She just took another step forward, into range, and they both knew it.  Her hands were open, her posture relaxed.  “All the more reason to have someone watching your back.”

Virgil gently set the fletchette back down on the table.


	5. The Martian!AU

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Virgil couldn't face the day he'd have to face his family again and tell them he'd left their littlest brother behind

Virgil’s mouth was dry.  He worked his jaw absently as, below him, Mars rose into view, bathing the entire side of the  _ Hermes _ in a ruddy glow..

He never thought he’d be back here again.

On the bridge, there was rapid-fire chatter between Kayo and Brains as they calculated the realities of their maneuvers, remapping their trajectory on the fly.  “Can you ping our boy?” Penny asked, her voice firm and commanding as she refocused their attention on why they were here.

Virgil’s biomonitor blipped once, a single spike on his monitor, but he forced himself to breathe until his heartbeat leveled out.   _ Our boy.   _ That was  _ his  _ brother they’d left down there.  His.

It had been long, dark months believing he’d left his baby brother’s body behind.  He’d spent every night alone knowing that they were one day closer to Earth, one day closer to the minute Virgil had to face his family without Alan.

He tried to say the words, alone in his cabin.  He choked on the sound every time.

Then Mitch Henderson had dropped that bombshell of a message, and Virgil had realized that there was something worse than leaving your dead brother behind, and that was leaving your  _ alive _ brother behind, marooned on another planet. 

Comms had been limited, even when Alan had made it to Schiaparelli. The landing site only had a MAV; the sophisticated comms arrays that allowed for video and voice were still on a factory floor somewhere near Portland.  Virgil had chewed his nails to the quick thinking of all the things that could go wrong so close to rescue.  He’d drilled until Penny had threatened to dose him with sleeping pills, walked through every contingency with Brains and Kayo until it was reflex, until he was dreaming in trigonometry and intercept values.  And every day, Mars grew larger and larger until it filled his whole view.

To make the rendezvous, Alan needed to have launched while the Hermes was still finishing its insertion.  There was no chance to make an audio connection until after Alan’s launch had burned out all the fuel and, hopefully, placed him into orbit.  Virgil had written and deleted and written and deleted, over and over again, his final letter to be emailed, Hermes to MAV.  In the end, Virgil had wiped it all and just sent “See you soon, bro.  Fly straight.”

Alan had sent back “Piece of cake.  Come catch me.”

Virgil refused to even think that might be the last thing Alan ever said.

Somewhere down there, his baby brother was rocketing upwards in a stolen spaceship, and Virgil was damn well not going to leave him behind again.  He’d talked to Kayo, the only other one who’d understand. 

Penny had forbidden him to go untethered.  Kayo had a plan ready if Virgil had to take the leap.

On the bridge, Penny was trying comms again, desperately searching for the  _ ping _ that was the tiny pod in the vastness of space.  “I have signal lock,” Kayo announced.  Virgil had never heard Kayo speak with anything other than calm control or wry humour, but now her words were threaded with excitement and worry.  “Bio signal coming through...tracking strong!”

Virgil closed his eyes, just for a second, and thanked the universe.  They were so close now...

“Hermes to MAV, respond please.”  Penny’s voice was firm, commanding, their leader.  But Virgil had spent months watching Penny grow pale and tired, caught her more than once in the artificial night of the Hermes going over the mission data from that day.  It weighed on her; it had weighed on them all.  But now they had a chance to put it right.  “Respond, please. Alan!”

The sound of static stretched like taffy.  “Hey guys,” Alan said, his voice weak but clear.  “Hell of a ride.”

Virgil wanted to cheer, to call out, to scream.  But the mission wasn’t done yet, and they had to work the plan.  “MAV, Hermes Actual,” Penny replied for them all. “Good to hear your voice, stand by.”  

A click of the channels, and Kayo was in Virgil’s ear.  “I’ve triangulated.  Distance to target is twenty three kilometers.”

Virgil’s stomach dropped so fast he had to hold onto the rail with both heavily gloved hands.  There was no way they could make this.

“O-o-one minute, Kayo.”  Brains only stuttered like that when the idea in his head was so large he couldn’t get it out all in one go.  “I h-h-h-ave an idea.”

Virgil listened intently as Brains outlined his scheme, the numbers until  _ too late _ counting down in his head as they came up with a new plan.  This scheme was mad, insane, something NASA would never approve of. They would essentially have to detonate a bomb on a spaceship, destroy airlocks, crash-vacuum the ship...

“Let’s do it.”  Penny’s voice was on the comms was firm and commanding. “Five minutes, get to position.”

It was hard work, moving in zero-g, the hard-vacuum space suits like a bubble around him, resisting any attempt to hurry.  Virgil focused on putting one hand after the other along the rails, moving as fast as he dared to get into position.  From the bridge, Brains called the play, keeping them in a rhythm.  Far beneath them, Alan was waiting, his orbit already decaying.

They had one shot at this.  One miscalculation, one mistake, and they all died here, in the fireball, or from asphyxiation a million miles from help. 

This had to work.

Penny counted down, her voice in all their ears.  “Five, four, three, two, one.  Detonate.”

Virgil’s back slammed into the wall of the Hermes as the front airlock blew, spewing precious air into the vacuum.  Physical forces competed as the Hermes flexed and silently groaned under the pressure.  Even prepared for it, Virgil had to work to get air back in his lungs.  Shaking his head to clear it, he turned for his tether as, on the bridge, Brains began calling numbers almost too fast to follow.  

“Virgil?  We’re now at 421 meters, relative velocity, eleven meters per second.”

Virgil nodded, puffing a few quick breaths in readiness.  It would feel like a freight train, but he wasn’t leaving Alan behind again.  “Close enough.  Count me in.”

“Copy. Three, two, one.  Go.”

Virgil threw himself out of the Hermes and towards the tiniest silver dot set against the red, looming bulk of Mars.  As he skidded through nothingness, the dot grew into a silver saucer.  Virgil felt the line pay out as a head appeared in the center of the disk.

Alan.

The tether was skidding through its belay, tugging as the reel wound down until there was nothing left, and Alan was still too far away.  In his ear, he heard Kayo call out his situation, heard Penny query the distance again.

Virgil didn’t need the numbers now, he could see the tether was going to be a liability.

Alan had figured it out too.  Before Virgil could make the call, Alan jumped the gun, pushing out off the MAV, twisting like a sparkling fish as he let momentum propel him towards rescue, faster than Virgil would have credited possible with inertia alone.

He was coming in too quickly for a plan.  Virgil kicked out his legs, and just like when Alan was small, he slammed into Virgil hard. Virgil starfished and closed his arms and legs around his younger brother.

Their helmets were tinted, too dark to see more than shadows of each others faces.  Virgil pressed his to Alan’s, wanting, needing to  _ see _ him.  “Hey, halfpint.”

“Hey Virgil.”  Virgil knew his brother well enough to hear that Alan had been crying.  “Thanks for coming to pick me up.”

Virgil might have been crying as well, but in the dark of his helmet, no-one need ever know.  “Piece of cake, little brother.  Piece of cake.”   



	6. Teen Wolf!AU

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Family is, when you go there, they have to take you in (Day Six: Brothers - Teen Wolf!AU)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> note for one moment of brotherly-appropriate language :)

Virgil slipped through the barn doors just as the glow of dawn kissed the horizon.  He was aching, the deep throb of his bones realigning themselves.  His clothes were where he left them, neatly folded on top of a box of old tools that had been forgotten in a corner.  As always, he had to concentrate on the buttons and zips, his brain still not caught up with the change from paws back to fingers.

He felt shaky, drained and unsteady on his feet.  It was worse this time, like his human side was struggling to hold onto this shape even though the moon had long since set.  

There had been the faint scent of other wolves out among the corn stalks, and the part of him that was a wolf wanted to growl and stalk and pounce on the interlopers.  The human side had fought to be heard in the maelstrom a full moon wrought, but in the end it was survival that had won out.

Virgil was a lone wolf, no Alpha, no backup in the darkness of the long night.  He was all alone.  A stronger wolf could, and probably would, tear him to pieces before he even had time to howl.

Virgil dressed in layers now, and they cossetted him like a blanket.  Wolves didn’t wear clothes, but humans did, and he was resolutely, at his core, human.  He repeated it like a mantra every month, hoping that one day the words would stick.

Gordon was waiting by the back door, curled up on the porch swing seat, a shock of golden hair the only part visible from under the old, thick blanket.  “Nice run?” he asked, voice muffled for a moment before his face popped out from under the covers.  “Find any lost kids down any old wells?”

“Fuck you,” Virgil replied easily.

Gordon tsked.  “Language,” he chided, but he was grinning as he shoved aside the blanket, feet bare as he jumped out of the seat and followed Virgil into the kitchen.  “Grandma will scrub your mouth out with soap no matter what size your fangs, remember.”

The coffee was already brewed, and Virgil grabbed two mugs, nodding at Scott where he was manning the stove, shoveling crispy bacon onto a plate.  John acknowledged Virgil with a brief nod before he returned his attentions to his tablet as Virgil sat at the place laid for him.

After several full moons, they had fallen into this easy routine.  Gordon would wait and watch until Virgil loped back to the farm, where Scott would feed him full to bursting and John would ask questions and take samples and measurements.

The pack that had chased down the rogue Alpha who had bitten him had offered Virgil a place in with them.  Virgil had turned them down flat.

He already had a home.   



	7. The Librarians!AU

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Team the Best Team (or: five ways the Library changed Virgil)

 

1)  The letter arrives on parchment, written in a flowing script that hadn't been designed by algorithm.  Virgil rubs it between his fingers, taking a moment to luxuriate in the delicate softness of the weave before he folds the letter up and puts it back in its envelope.

The Metropolitan Library would have to wait. The engineering school his father had selected for him was in Colorado, in completely the opposite direction from New York, and its art schools and galleries, and the Library.

He hadn't so much lost that argument as failed entirely to have it.  It wasn't that he didn't want to study engineering--there was beauty in a well-designed system, an elegance in form that followed function.  It was just that after listening to his father speak, greedily, about tool and purpose and profit, the aesthetic joy he found in machines seemed to always dim and fade.

His father disliked dialectics of any kind; Virgil knew he wasn't meant to be two things at once.

So he kept his art books hidden behind technical manuals, and his historical critiques behind aliases.  The letter was secreted, too, between the covers of his favourite folio.

Titian would keep the letter and all it represented company while Virgil was made busy with other people’s plans.

 

2) Virgil had had only moments to take in the unbelievable potential of the Library before it had been snatched away and cast adrift, sending them on a wild chase around the world.  Now magic was back, and the Library was gone, and apparently they were meant to  _ do  _ something about it.

Virgil had a technical report due on Monday; he wondered if he needed to tell anyone at school that he wasn’t coming back.

Parker had grumbled about his Annex being annexed but had pulled out some dusty camp beds for them before disappearing into his workrooms.  Penny had vanished an hour ago, and Colonel Casey, their new Guardian, had gone to find out what mischief the young spy was getting into.

Brains was still nose-deep in a book, ringed by open tomes, muttering to himself in equations.  Virgil knew that look, had worn it often enough himself to know that Brains wasn’t going to be surfacing for a while.

Still too restless to sleep, Virgil slowly climbed the stairs to the mezzanine level. There were so many books here, and if Parker was to be believed, if it existed in the Library, it could be summoned here.  Every book, every art folio, every scroll and scratch in human history was now at his fingertips.

Perhaps it was for the best that Library proper was denied him now.  Brains had found himself a puzzle easily enough, but Virgil couldn’t think of a single thing to call up first; having the actual Library, and its totality of infinite shelves before him, might have finished blowing his mind.  

He walked along the curving mezzanine, letting his fingers trail and trip along the uneven row of spines stacked on short rows of shelves.  All of human history was here.  Even with the Library lost to the void, there was so much here that it was making him dizzy.

Yesterday, he’d been having lunch with his family, answering questions and proving his worth, once again, to the family firm.  Yesterday everything was grounded in science and simple binaries.  Yesterday, he thought no-one knew, that no-one  _ could  _ understand, what it was like to want to spend forever among art and literature and all the things his father thought worthless.

Today, he was valued precisely because of all the art and language and literature that he’d sneakily crammed into his brain.  Today he’d fought ninjas and broken into Buckingham Palace and defeated the puzzles of a Henge.  Today had been a very unusual day.  And, according to the Colonel, tomorrow, they all started training to become real Librarians.  

It was a lot to take in.  He still wasn’t sure there hadn’t been a mistake, that they had meant to grab someone else, but had to settle for him instead.

Under his touch, a rough binding caught his fingers.  Virgil frowned, and tugged the book off the shelf.  The leather folio was large, butter-soft with age.  Virgil rested it against the banister, opening the crackling pages with care.

It was a list of names, some he recognized from his own study of history, but most he didn’t know.  Anonymous names, listed by date.  He turned the pages slowly, reading each line of the list.

The last page held only four names:  Flynn Carsen, Penelope Creighton-Ward, Hiram Hackenbacker, and finally, the last item written with a glorious flourish, Virgil Tracy.

Virgil closed the folio and looked around the Annex with fresh eyes. For the first time in his life, he felt like he had a choice.

And if he had a choice, he chose this.

  
  


3) It felt like champagne bubbles on his tongue.  Virgil’s nose twitched as he tried to hold his focus, aware of Parker as he stood motionless at the far end of the table, watching.

Slowly, slowly, Virgil let his fingers unfurl and whispered the final words of the spell.

Power.  Focus.  And effect.

The dimly lit Annex began to glow, the cascade of sparkles lifted up from the palm of his hands.  The light was warm, like dying embers, deepening shadows and highlighting edges.

“Well done, Mr Tracy,” Parker said, sounding almost proud.  The old man nodded briskly to himself as he stepped away from the table and disappeared into his maze of back rooms.

Virgil trailed his fingers through the sparks, which flickered and died under his touch.  A portable light, one that could be conjured at will and removed with a gesture.  It would prove useful.  

Five months ago, Virgil would have said there was no such thing as magic.  Five weeks ago, he was sure magic required something special, some ability, some inner spark.

Five minutes ago, he first felt the taste of champagne on his tongue.

The laugh bubbled up out of him was pure joy and wonder, of a kind that he had not felt in far too long.

As the sparkling lights died down, Virgil took a deep breath and turned the next page of the spell book.

 

4) It was odd to see Penny and Brains again.  Virgil had run a dozen missions across a dozen countries in the last three months, swinging from the retrieved Library out into the world and back again like a pendulum, Mr Parker his only constant.

And suddenly Penny and Brains were  _ there _ again, chattering and arguing and just making noise by being there, and Virgil wasn’t sure what to think anymore.

It had been a long time since he’d spent any real time, with anyone.  He’d met lots of people, sure, some nice, some who wanted to kill him, all completely unaware that magic was real and in the world.   He’d traveled to places he’d never even heard of at the command of his little book, but every locale he’d observed as if from behind glass, able only to watch but never touch.  

Penny and Brains’ return had shattered the glass, burst the bubble that had formed around him, and let in noise and light and colour once more.  It was too easy, the way the three of them fell into step with each other, even as Prospero sent them on a chase through a fairy-driven storm.

“Why did we stop working together?” Virgil asked as Brains strapped tight the various elements of the heat suit around Virgil’s limbs

“We just d-d-did,” Brains replied, not doing him the discourtesy of pretending not to understand.  “People do that.”

“Perhaps we shouldn’t have,” Penny added quietly from where she was perched on the edge of the work table.  “We’re not people, we’re Librarians.  We need to be better.”

“Try harder,” Virgil agreed.  He swallowed hard, his distorted reflection in the reflection of helmet Penny held bobbing with the movement.  He grinned at himself.  “We did have fun in Peru,” he admitted.

“Til you got bossy,” Penny added, teasingly.

“Hey!”

“You d-did get a little bossy,” Brains added quietly, tightening down the last strap before stepping back.

“Proposal,” Penny declared, dropping lightly to her feet.  “If we don’t all turn into crispy fried Librarians, that is.”  She held out her hand, palm down.  “Team?”

Brains and Virgil grinned at each other as they laid their gloved hands over Penny’s.  “Team the best team,” he agreed, feeling a weight he hadn’t even been aware he had been carrying lift off his shoulders for the first time in three months.

The job was still the same; but it felt different, doing it with people watching his back, people who understood.  With his friends.

  
  


5) It had to be Kansas.  Of all the gin joints in all the world and all that.  Virgil kept his beanie tugged down low and hoped no-one spotted him before he could grab what he came for and make it back through the Door.

After this was over, Virgil was going to have to have an awkward conversation with the old man about buying stolen art to hang in the foyer of Tracy Industries.  But for now, the little clock in his head was ticking down the minutes until said stolen artwork finished absorbing the power of the local leylines and unleashed its havoc on the immediate vicinity.

And given that his brothers were working somewhere in said vicinity, Virgil was feeling doubly motivated to grab and go.

Over by the display, Penny was dawdling, looking like a bored visitor taking in the only splash of colour in the otherwise grey and glass and steel foyer.  Virgil hustled over.  “Third from the left.”

“You sure?” she asked, never taking her eyes off the art or the smile off her face.

Virgil rolled his eyes.  “One, two, and four all are fakes.  Modern colours, synthetic brush marks in the strokes.  Three is the real deal.”

She sighed as she nodded discreetly.  “Well, all four have motion sensor grids around them and trips on the hanging system.  Four guards in the foyer, fifth on a three minute rotational sweep.  I need a distraction.”

Virgil closed his eyes for a moment and whispered a silent prayer to who or whatever watched out for Librarians.  “On it.”

Fifteen minutes later, security was dragging him onto the carpet in front of the familiar giant desk.  “You’ve resisted the urge to jump in the fountain out the front of this building for nearly two decades, Virgil.”  His father’s voice, quiet and calm and behind him was still recognizable, even if it didn’t seem to have the boom it had in his memories.  Virgil kept his eyes on the glass of water sitting on the desk as his father crossed the room and sat down before him.  “Yet you disappear from your school a year ago and choose to reappear now by splashing about in the forecourt.” There was a heavy, disappointed sigh.  “Anything you want to tell me, Virgil?”

Virgil finally looked up.  His father looked older, smaller, more human.  Virgil smiled.  “I don’t want to be an engineer.  I like it, but it’s not my passion.”

“So what will become of you?  Professional fountain tester?”

Virgil smiled, appreciating the flash of humour.  “I’ve decided to take a position with the Metropolitan Library.”

“A Librarian?” his father said blankly.  The silence stretched out for a long moment.  “Is that your passion?”

Virgil nodded, still dripping on the carpet.  “I love art.  I know art.  I’m the best in the world at it, but I could always learn more.”

His father stared at him; Virgil stared right back.  “If that’s what makes you happy.  You know, you could have just told me, instead of vanishing like that.”  He reached out without looking as an assistant hurried over, taking the towel they handed him and tossing it over the desk to Virgil.  “Your brothers were frantic.”

Virgil toweled off his hair.  “Occupational hazard I--” the word was cut off by an alarm sounding.

His father didn’t move as around them security and assistants began to run.  “Is this by any chance related to your little swim?”

Virgil shrugged.  “I promise, this looks weird, but it’s for the best.”

The phone on the table rang.  “Speak,” his father said into the receiver, never taking his eyes off Virgil.  “The foyer piece.  Yes.  I understand.”  The receiver slotted back into its cradle with a well-engineered click.  “For the best?”

Virgil nodded.

His father closed his eyes with a sigh.  “Very well.  Be at Sunday dinner or I’ll send Scott after you.  Now scram, before Kyrano puts the pieces together.” 

Virgil grinned, pulling out his phone as he turned and strode for the exit.  “Mr Parker?  I need a Door.  Now.”  

There would be questions on Sunday.  But between now and then was a whole week of adventure and mystery, and endless chances to make a difference.


	8. Thunderbirds!AU

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> for the bonus day "hangover" -- IR is famous, so surely at some point, somewhere, someone would make a film based on their exploits...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note for language. Also a note that I actually enjoyed the 2004 movie, but needs must, so they didn't :)

“I need a drink.”  Virgil headed straight to the bar.  In the reflection of the glass lining the wetback, Virgil saw John nod at Scott’s questioning look.  

Virgil poured out two doubles of top-shelf whiskey as Scott slid onto a barstool and tossed his keycomm to John in one smooth movement.  “All yours, bro.  I owe you.”  John accepted both the offer and the authority over the Thunderbirds with a slight incline of his head as he claimed his own barstool.

Virgil mixed a quick lemon and soda for John as Scott made appreciative noises over the whiskey.  “Not every day we get to have a drink.  May as well make it the good stuff,” Virgil said, shrugging  off Scott’s enquiring look. He clinked his own glass off Scott’s and then John’s.  “Sure you’re okay being on call, John?”

John sipped his soda.  “Yeah.  Besides, you two look shellshocked.”  He managed to even press his hand to Scott’s forehead before Scott laughed and batted it away.  “Stiff medicine and a good night’s sleep,” he prescribed with a straight face and dancing eyes.

Virgil made a face as he swirled the amber liquid gently around the glass.  “I think I’m going to be having nightmares for a week after that.”  Scott made a noise of quiet horror and swallowed half his glass in one gulp, hissing as it burned its way down.

John was playing absently with the condensation rolling down the side of his glass.  “Plus side, no-one knows it was meant to be about us.”

“No,” Scott corrected.  “It was a movie about the Thunderbirds.  Everyone knows the Thunderbirds, that movie might count as slander.  I should get legal on that.”

John smiled to himself, like he’d just thought of a joke.  “You said that when the project was announced…”

“And when they announced who was playing you,” Virgil interjected.

“And when the trailer was released,” John continued as if Virgil hadn’t spoken.  “And the answer was always the same.  If the Thunderbirds protested, it would draw too much attention.  The secret would be out.”

Virgil shuddered, suddenly struck with the image of people knowing that that film __ was about them, about  _ him. _  He reached back and grabbed the bottle.  “I am happy with having no connection to that thing, thank you.”

Behind them, the suite’s doors banged open again, Gordon’s voice booming as it preceded him into the room.  “...mean, I know I’m blond, but that was, like, out of a fucking bottle blond.  No.  That was a travesty.”

Virgil grabbed another glass and hoped that there wasn’t a sudden volcano or anything in the next twenty-four hours that needed all five of them.  “Still unhappy with the casting there, Gord?”

Gordon’s eyes flashed daggers as he swiped the glass and bottle, chivalrously poured out a measure for Penny, then immediately swigged straight from the bottle.

Scott watched this performance with one eyebrow raised.  “I’ll take that as a yes.  Lady P, what did you think?”

Penny graciously handed her glass to Alan, stole the bottle off Gordon, and matched his swig for swig.

“Oookay,” Scott said slowly, watching Gordon and Penny as they moved as one to slump together on the sofa set under the huge plate window.  “Don’t drink that, Alan, you’re underage and on-call tonight.”

For a second, Virgil wasn’t sure if Alan was going to stick out his tongue or his middle finger in response.  But he came over to the bar and poured the measure into Scott’s glass before reaching for the soda.  “If anyone here has grounds to complain, it’s me,” he pouted.

Virgil pushed himself up so he was perched on the bar, his feet resting on the barstool.  “Okay, final tally.  Go.”

“Fake blond!” came a mournful yelp from the sofa.

“I would never be seen in that car,” Penny added, winning the battle for the bottle with an unladylike jab of her elbow.

Alan was sat next to John, his face buried on his folded arms.  “I was a jerk,” he mumbled.  “Also twelve.”

John patted his head.  “You are twelve.  Not a jerk though,” he added before Alan could disembowel his brother.  “And you didn’t blow up your station.”

“Point of order,” Scott interjected.  “You were blown up.”

John accepted the correction with a graceful nod of his head.  “Still had to be rescued.  There’s such a thing as a contingency plan.”  He picked up his own glass with a snort of derision.  “Amateurs.” 

Virgil was trying to keep up the tally on his fingers.  He’d apparently lost some of his alcohol tolerance living on constant call on a dry island for years.  “Okay, Scott…?”

Scott sighed and tossed back his drink.  “The whole damn movie?”

There was a burp from the couch.  “Party foul, we can all claim that one.  Be more specific!”

Scott shook his head, turning his stool to face the sofa.  “No, that would involve thinking about it, and I do not want to think about it.”

“What about you, Virgil?” Alan asked, lifting his head to rest his chin on his arms.  “What did you think?”

Virgil was, by nature, an optimist.  “There were some good bits,” he tried to a chorus of groans.  “I mean, Alan got to save the day, and they figured out we must have someone like Brains and gave them some good lines, and….” he struggled for a moment.  “The CGI was kind of cool?”

That got an actual bark of laughter out of John.  “I could do better on my phone.”

Virgil gave up and lifted his glass.  “Well, plus side.  Not likely to get a sequel.”

That at least got a cheer.

*** * ***

Virgil woke to a dry mouth and a pounding head. He’d forgotten how crappy a hangover felt.  He could feel someone’s arm over his, and a head was using his belly as a pillow, pressing right down on Virgil’s bladder.  Someone else was cuddling his legs.

Virgil’s bleary mind tried to remember a weirder way of waking up, and came up blank.

There was the smell of freshly brewed coffee in the air, and between that and the urgent messages his bladder was sending him, Virgil fought past the pounding in his head and the roiling of his stomach and tried to sit up.

Scott was the surprise octopus cuddling his leg.  Virgil kicked his older brother in the ribs until he got a bleary noise of protest.  “Signs of life confirmed.  As you were.”

Scott made a gesture that got halfway through flipping Virgil off before he gave up and twisted on the spot to cuddle up to a cushion instead.

Penny was the one using him as a pillow, Gordon arm thrown over Virgil’s to hold her hand.  Virgil almost felt bad about breaking up the adorable tableau, but coffee was calling.  He managed to extricate himself from them without either of them fully waking, though Penny cracked an eye open just far enough to glare balefully at him.  “Turn off the sun, would you, there’s a good chap.”

Virgil stretched as he drifted over to the windows, where he yanked the blinds fully open.  There were groans, and what was possibly a hiss from Gordon.  “You’re a cruel man, Virgil Grissom Tracy,” Kayo said approvingly from where she was standing by the coffee maker.  “Nice party?”

“We were in mourning for our street cred, cut us some slack.”  He nodded gratefully as Kayo handed him a freshly made cup.  “You are my favourite, Kayo.  Absolute favourite.”

She smirked, a secret little smile.  “Will you still love me when I tell you I took many, many incriminating photographs of you all passed out in a puppy pile while waiting for that to brew?”

Virgil paused from his savouring of the scent of caffeine.  “What’s your price to photoshop John in my place before you release it on the internet?”

Her smirk grew as she leaned on the counter between them.  “I think we can negotiate a fair trade.”

He beamed at her as he took a big sip.  “Kayo Kyrano, you are my absolute favourite, light of my light and the scariest woman I know.”

She burst out laughing, a rare treat from her.  “Flirt,” she scolded.  “Oh, and there was a note for you from the soon-to-be-photoshopped.”

The message was a terse text.  ‘McMurdo Base lost power.  Dropping off generator.  Will make sure Alan doesn’t crash your ‘Bird.’  A quick tap on his phone showed T2 currently a hundred miles off the coast of Antarctica. 

Virgil swallowed and felt his headache throb back into full power with the movement.  It felt weird, his Bird out there without him, but he wouldn’t be clear to fly by--he rubbed his forehead, wincing at the shafts of light now pouring in through the window--call it at least twelve hours.  “You scratch it, you die, little brother,” he muttered to himself as he scrunched up the note.  

“Relax,” Kayo said, her tablet already in her hands.  “And come pick a dorky photo of John before the others wake up.”

Putting aside his worry, Virgil sat down next to Kayo.  “Where did you get all these pictures of John making stupid faces?”

She didn’t look up from her scrolling.  “The same place I get my shots of you making stupid faces.”

Virgil, blinked, groaned, and went to get a fresh cup of coffee and some painkillers as Kayo’s laughter woke the others.

 


End file.
